Sex And Sexuality In Dr. Stoker's Dracula

One of the many taboos explored in the novel Dracula is sexuality. During this Victorian era Stoker manages to discretely display the idea of not only consuming one another, but also the transformation from innocence that a victim undergoes. Women during this era had two options: first to be a virgin, representing all things pure and innocent, and second a wife or mother. If a woman did not fit into either of these categories she was considered a whore and therefore not considered a part of society. Sex plays a role in the novel representing hidden human desires and sin whether it be the sexual act or gender. Stoker applies this idea throughout his novel and attaches it to certain characters from time to time in order to expose an adjacent

Stoker is clever in contrasting the two best friends, Lucy and Mina, because he portrays Mina as more of a respectable woman than Lucy. Van Helsing even says that Lucy is “one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist--and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish” (Stoker 203). Stoker’s view on the relationship between men and women is revisited here and he shows the reader his opinion of what a woman should aspire to be like. He does not sexualize Mina because she is not a sinful or evil woman with suppressed desires, but rather strong-minded and devoted. That is to say why the issue in Mina’s situation is gender based rather than sexual. Mina, although obedient to the situation, is not viewed as an equal to the group of men attempting to protect her. Van Helsing, whilst astounded with Mina’s contributions states, “‘We men are determined--nay, are we not pledged?--to destroy this monster; but it is no part for a woman’” (Stoker 251). Mina gladly accepts the gender role in which she is placed, but at the same time she feels constrained and as if she could be of more help to the men. The choice in Dracula’s victim also shows how Victorian society did not view women as autonomous individuals.

The female vampires refuse to adhere to gender roles, much like the Victorian New Woman, making them both equally terrifying monsters back then. A modern day feminist can read the novel and recognize the female vampire monsters within Dracula as heroines who are on the front line of resistance against the exploitation and oppression of women from their patriarchal male overlords. For this purpose, Stoker sexualizes the evil women with potential for power so they could be viewed in a negative light. As far as the contrast between Mina and Lucy: Lucy is sexualized and killed, meanwhile Mina, Stoker’s perfect woman, is never sexualized and although a victim of Dracula, she lives on to have a happy life with Jonathan. In summary, Stoker utilizes the idea of oversexualized women and the supernatural to evoke his view on society, in favor of male dominance, to his